Blame Nobel for crisis, says author of Black Swan | Reuters

2 Replies

Shared by JohnH

Note: From the Globe and Mail (Check comments, Mark informs us that NNT was aware of this in TBS, so in fact, it’s the Globe and Mail author who got it wrong).
http://goo.gl/Sd61

The next prize winner will be revealed to great public acclaim or, more typically, puzzlement on Oct. 11. But what neither Mr. Taleb nor most other people realize is that none of the above actually won a Nobel Prize — at least not the official one set up in the name of the late dynamite mogul.

What the gaggle of economic theorists have actually scored is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, which is paid for by the Swedish central bank “in memory of Alfred Nobel,” who set aside nothing from his vast fortune to honour economists.

Nassim Taleb speaks to reporters at the Reuters Finance Summit in New York November 16, 2005.

 

 

 

Credit: Reuters By Adam Cox

STOCKHOLM |
Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:40am EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Did the Nobel prize help trigger the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

Nassim Taleb, who shot to fame with his ideas about risk in the book “The Black Swan,” believes the economics award and the theories it celebrates deserve their share of blame.

“I want to remove the harm from these economic models. And the Nobel is not helping. They should be held partly responsible, if not largely responsible, for the crisis,” Taleb told Reuters by telephone.

The first of the Nobel awards will be announced next Monday, with the economics prize due a week later on Oct 11.

According to Taleb, there are a number of mistaken ideas about forecasting and measuring risk, which all contribute to events like the 2008 global crisis. The Nobel prize, he says, has given them a stamp of approval, allowing them to propagate.

2 thoughts on “Blame Nobel for crisis, says author of Black Swan | Reuters”

  1. Mark Weaver

    “But what neither Mr. Taleb nor most other people realize is that none of the above actually won a Nobel Prize.”

    Taleb clearly realized this as early as 2005 as he explains exactly this in the first version of TBS.

  2. admin

    Thank You Mark, I should have checked beforehand. I’ll go back to The Globe and Mail and post a comment.
    Digging a little deeper then I find this, from Wikipedia, about the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

    The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics[1] (Swedish: Nobelpriset i ekonomi), is an award for outstanding contributions to the science of economics. It is generally considered one of the most prestigious awards for that science.[2] The official name is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Swedish: Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne). It is not one of the Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, but is commonly identified with them.[2][3][4][5][6] The Prize in Economics, as it is referred to by the Nobel Foundation, was established and endowed by Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, during 1968 on the Bank’s 300th anniversary, in memory of Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will.[2

    And this from the 2007 edition of The Black Swan, pg. 277

    And now a brief history of the “Nobel” Prize in economics, which was es­tablished by the Bank of Sweden in honor of Alfred Nobel, who may be, according to his family who wants the prize abolished, now rolling in his grave with disgust. An activist family member calls the prize a public rela­tions coup by economists aiming to put their field on a higher footing than it deserves.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *